You're on SCOTUS: What is you're guiding philosophy?

[they don't love you like i love you]

I also view the professionalism, dignity, and apoliticism of the court as very important.

I'd quote emo lyrics in my decisions.

[Vosem]

I also view the professionalism, dignity, and apoliticism of the court as very important.

I'd quote emo lyrics in my decisions.

Some judges write their opinions as poetry: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2018/04/poetic-decisions/

We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest,
Upon a mangled tree’s behest;
A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy’s crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;
A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must affirm the court’s decree.

[Vosem]

I think that the Constitution is an outdated piece of junk, so I would just do what I think is best for the nation

What's the point of laws then if an unelected judge can just do whatever they want?

I mean...you of course can rule however you like but I view it as wrong to not ground it in some legal basis, even if it's not originalist (and I am not one).

The Constitution should have been rewritten long ago, and the only reason why it hasn’t is because of the ridiculous requirements for amending the Constitution and the large portion of rubes in this country who buy into the right wing narrative that the Constitution is some sort of God-given document written by men wiser than anyone alive. Besides, Republican hacks like Alito and Thomas pretty much ignore the Constitution whenever it’s convenient to them anyways

So then you say...skip democracy and just have judges do whatever they want?

Since when are Justices democratically elected? They’re already allowed to do whatever they want.

You said that you would do whatever you wanted. So naturally that is fairly undemocratic. Like...very much so.

That’s already what most Justices do anyways lol.

I could completely ignore the Constitution and my rulings would still be more faithful to the Constitution than Alito’s rulings

Which ones? If you mean the dissent in Obergefell (or the more recent one in Pavan), say that. I'm legitimately curious what you mean here.

[VBM]

I think that the Constitution is an outdated piece of junk, so I would just do what I think is best for the nation

What's the point of laws then if an unelected judge can just do whatever they want?

I mean...you of course can rule however you like but I view it as wrong to not ground it in some legal basis, even if it's not originalist (and I am not one).

The Constitution should have been rewritten long ago, and the only reason why it hasn’t is because of the ridiculous requirements for amending the Constitution and the large portion of rubes in this country who buy into the right wing narrative that the Constitution is some sort of God-given document written by men wiser than anyone alive. Besides, Republican hacks like Alito and Thomas pretty much ignore the Constitution whenever it’s convenient to them anyways

So then you say...skip democracy and just have judges do whatever they want?

Since when are Justices democratically elected? They’re already allowed to do whatever they want.

You said that you would do whatever you wanted. So naturally that is fairly undemocratic. Like...very much so.

That’s already what most Justices do anyways lol.

I could completely ignore the Constitution and my rulings would still be more faithful to the Constitution than Alito’s rulings

Which ones? If you mean the dissent in Obergefell (or the more recent one in Pavan), say that. I'm legitimately curious what you mean here.

Alito’s entire career as a Justice has been doing whatever the Republican Party wants

[lfromnj]

I think that the Constitution is an outdated piece of junk, so I would just do what I think is best for the nation

What's the point of laws then if an unelected judge can just do whatever they want?

I mean...you of course can rule however you like but I view it as wrong to not ground it in some legal basis, even if it's not originalist (and I am not one).

The Constitution should have been rewritten long ago, and the only reason why it hasn’t is because of the ridiculous requirements for amending the Constitution and the large portion of rubes in this country who buy into the right wing narrative that the Constitution is some sort of God-given document written by men wiser than anyone alive. Besides, Republican hacks like Alito and Thomas pretty much ignore the Constitution whenever it’s convenient to them anyways

So then you say...skip democracy and just have judges do whatever they want?

Since when are Justices democratically elected? They’re already allowed to do whatever they want.

You said that you would do whatever you wanted. So naturally that is fairly undemocratic. Like...very much so.

That’s already what most Justices do anyways lol.

I could completely ignore the Constitution and my rulings would still be more faithful to the Constitution than Alito’s rulings

Which ones? If you mean the dissent in Obergefell (or the more recent one in Pavan), say that. I'm legitimately curious what you mean here.

Alito’s entire career as a Justice has been doing whatever the Republican Party wants

What just happened in Oregon then ?

[Kingpoleon]

Is that insane? There are no 14th Amendment cases involving a right to marriage¹ until Zablocki v. Redhail, which was a 1978 case; it was decided 8-1 with Rehnquist dissenting, and Thomas and Alito generally share much of Rehnquist's philosophy. It never seems to say anything direct about marriage; for over 100 years of its history nobody thought the 14th Amendment had anything to do with it.

(I'm uncertain Washington v. Glucksberg -- which found no right to assisted suicide -- was decided correctly; it seems to me that there is no meaningful right to privacy² or bodily autonomy without it. I agree with you that Obergefell was decided correctly in the light of Zablocki -- and I think Zablocki was decided correctly, though I'm conflicted about it -- but it seems rather bizarre to me to argue that the Constitution protects marriage more than assisted suicide.)

¹Unless you count Loving, but that case didn't find a right to marriage; it found anti-miscegenation laws to unconstitutionally discriminate based on race.
²"The right of the people to be secure in their persons..."
[/quote]

The right to marry has been affirmed by virtually every Justice on the Supreme Court in the latter half of the twentieth century - including Rehnquist and Scalia.

Loving: “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”(Earl Warren, 9-0 decision)
Meyer v. Nebraska: “While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children.”(James McReynolds, 7-2 decision)
Skinner v. Oklahoma: pWe are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.”(William Douglas, 9-0)
Zablocki v. Redhail: “The right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals."(Thurgood Marshall, 8-1, including Burger and White)
Turner v. Safley: “The decision to marry is a fundamental right.”(Sandra Day O’Connor, 9-0, including Scalia and Rehnquist)

[Vosem]

The right to marry has been affirmed by virtually every Justice on the Supreme Court in the latter half of the twentieth century - including Rehnquist and Scalia.

Loving: “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”(Earl Warren, 9-0 decision)
Meyer v. Nebraska: “While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children.”(James McReynolds, 7-2 decision)
Skinner v. Oklahoma: pWe are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.”(William Douglas, 9-0)
Zablocki v. Redhail: “The right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals."(Thurgood Marshall, 8-1, including Burger and White)
Turner v. Safley: “The decision to marry is a fundamental right.”(Sandra Day O’Connor, 9-0, including Scalia and Rehnquist)

No case before Zablocki explicitly found a right to marry protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, even if there were some that brought up marriage as a natural right in dicta. Rehnquist did not quite say that "there is no right to marriage" in Zablocki, but he did say:

I substantially agree with my Brother POWELL's reasons for rejecting the Court's conclusion that marriage is the sort of "fundamental right" which must invariably trigger the strictest judicial scrutiny. I disagree with his imposition of an "intermediate" standard of review...The statute so viewed is a permissible exercise of the State's power.

The statute in question prohibited parents in the state of Wisconsin who did not pay child support from marrying without a court's permission. Clearly marriage is not really that fundamental of a right, in Rehnquist's view, if the right can be stripped from someone for nonpayment of fines.

(Also, the earliest decision you cite -- Meyer -- is from 55 years after the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. I also wonder whether Meyer would be decided the same way today; it seems like an open-and-shut First Amendment violation to me, but I suppose before the incorporation doctrine some kind of nonsense about due process had to be invented for the Court to strike down such an obviously tyrannical law.)

(My own view is that a marriage protection might be found in the First Amendment -- preventing individuals from marrying, even in civil ceremonies, seems easily characterizable as "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" -- but probably not in the Fourteenth, except inasmuch as it incorporated it against the states. Observed this way, from my point of view, the holding in Obergefell follows very easily.)

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I was going to write a long post about pragmatic textualism with an expansive view of civil rights but I'm just gonna defer to what Nathan and KaiserDave said.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I also view the professionalism, dignity, and apoliticism of the court as very important.

I'd quote emo lyrics in my decisions.

Pope Francis quoted a sixties bossa nova song in his recent encyclical, so why not you too? I'd be all for this.

[SWE]

Give the decisions that lead to the policy outcomes I want. Same as any other SCOTUS judge

[KaiserDave]

X are bad. Therefore I must be like x. For.....reasons.

[SWE]

X are bad. Therefore I must be like x. For.....reasons.

I never said anything was bad

[they don't love you like i love you]

Give the decisions that lead to the policy outcomes I want. Same as any other SCOTUS judge

Yep, ALL LIBERAL ALL THE TIME

[KaiserDave]

X are bad. Therefore I must be like x. For.....reasons.

I never said anything was bad

You implied that given that judicial hacks exist, you would also act as a judicial hack for your side

So you don’t think said hackery is bad? I respectfully disagree

[SWE]

X are bad. Therefore I must be like x. For.....reasons.

I never said anything was bad

You implied that given that judicial hacks exist, you would also act as a judicial hack for your side

So you don’t think said hackery is bad? I respectfully disagree

Why would it be? It's the correct way to rule

[The Dowager Mod]

My guiding philosophy would be whatever the opposite of slappy Thomas is.

[KaiserDave]

X are bad. Therefore I must be like x. For.....reasons.

I never said anything was bad

You implied that given that judicial hacks exist, you would also act as a judicial hack for your side

So you don’t think said hackery is bad? I respectfully disagree

Why would it be? It's the correct way to rule

No, not really

[freepcrusher]

my view has always been that SCOTUS needs to be able to settle issues where there is no legislative solution (Baker v Carr being a classic example). Aside from that, I don't have many strong opinions.

[Kingpoleon]

No case before Zablocki explicitly found a right to marry protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, even if there were some that brought up marriage as a natural right in dicta. Rehnquist did not quite say that "there is no right to marriage" in Zablocki, but he did say:

The statute in question prohibited parents in the state of Wisconsin who did not pay child support from marrying without a court's permission. Clearly marriage is not really that fundamental of a right, in Rehnquist's view, if the right can be stripped from someone for nonpayment of fines.

(Also, the earliest decision you cite -- Meyer -- is from 55 years after the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. I also wonder whether Meyer would be decided the same way today; it seems like an open-and-shut First Amendment violation to me, but I suppose before the incorporation doctrine some kind of nonsense about due process had to be invented for the Court to strike down such an obviously tyrannical law.)

(My own view is that a marriage protection might be found in the First Amendment -- preventing individuals from marrying, even in civil ceremonies, seems easily characterizable as "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" -- but probably not in the Fourteenth, except inasmuch as it incorporated it against the states. Observed this way, from my point of view, the holding in Obergefell follows very easily.)

I was not commenting on where the right to marriage is found, just asserting that Scalia and Rehnquist has previously found such a right to exist.

[John Dule]

My view has always been that there is a narrow range of acceptable interpretations for any law, defined by any ambiguities in the literal wording. In that range, you can justify a limited set of interpretations based on prior legal precedent, textual evidence as to the intent of the authors of the law, and common-sense knowledge of how a layman would read that statute. These methods should only be permissible in that narrow window, and obviously one's own conceptions of morality and justice should not enter into the equation whatsoever.

[lfromnj]

My guiding philosophy would be whatever the opposite of slappy Thomas is.

Pro Civil Asset Forfeiture?
Pro qualified immunity?
Against allowing states to legalize weed ?

All 3 of these are valid positions legally and I have to do more research but this seems like a "owning the cons" answer.

[Kingpoleon]

Above all, justices should be prudent.  That means interpreting the questions in the case as narrowly as possible and avoiding establishing new, broad rules or sweeping precedents.  In practice, the Court should correct injustices resulting from government action but it should very rarely create new positive rights or exemptions that upend the legislative process. 

What Justice would you say was most in line with this view?

[politicallefty]

I would be a cross between Justices Black and Brennan. I do firmly believe in textualism. I do not believe in originalism.

For example, in this topic, the issue of marriage rights has been brought up. While I do agree with the outcome of Obergefell, I would have preferred a different avenue. I'm not necessarily on board with the idea of a fundamental right to marry under the 14th Amendment. I would've preferred Obergefell to be decided under equal protection itself (either sex, sexual orientation, or both). I believe in a very expansive view of the Equal Protection Clause. If those that wrote the amendment meant it to only mean race, like many originalists apparently believe, I believe they would have included such language in the text. They did not include such language.

[Del Tachi]

Above all, justices should be prudent.  That means interpreting the questions in the case as narrowly as possible and avoiding establishing new, broad rules or sweeping precedents.  In practice, the Court should correct injustices resulting from government action but it should very rarely create new positive rights or exemptions that upend the legislative process.  

What Justice would you say was most in line with this view?

Hmm...I haven't really given much though to this question.  I would say the "least prudent" justices seem to be Gorsuch and Sotomayor, which is funny considering they're ideological opposites.  I think Roberts and Kavanaugh have prudent sensibilities, while Breyer's "pragmatism" is actually very encompassing and sweeping.   

Going back a few years, I think Sandra Day O'Connor was the justice best in this mold.  A lot of her opinions really delve into articulating and dissecting the specific fact patterns on which the cases turn, not making broad-sweeping generalizations that could be read as future precedent.  

[All Along The Watchtower]

Some combination of these two

Above all, justices should be prudent.  That means interpreting the questions in the case as narrowly as possible and avoiding establishing new, broad rules or sweeping precedents.  In practice, the Court should correct injustices resulting from government action but it should very rarely create new positive rights or exemptions that upend the legislative process.  

I'd model myself on a cross between Gorsuch and Sotomayor--textualism, but not originalism, and vindicating the causes of the vulnerable whenever possible. I'd probably cultivate an unusually expansive understanding of the Equal Protection Clause and/or of statutory civil rights law to make up for my very low view of substantive due process.

But most importantly for me would be deference to both state governments and Congress as a general rule, as well as being fairly skeptical of presidential power, and perhaps even more so of delegated executive power (Cabinet departments and agencies etc.) -  even though I personally support much of what the federal government does and indeed, believe it should do a lot more on many issues of economic regulation and social policy.

I do look quite favorably on congressional oversight of executive power and believe it should be expanded and given more teeth; I suppose that's one answer to what I call the "elected vs. effective" problem of governance in a large, complex democracy like the US.